The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to a solid state device and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to a field emission device and method of fabricating the same.
Nanoscale memory-switch circuits are useful in many applications including, without limitation, logic, memory and processing devices. These devices set the basic efficiency of these devices. The realization of nanoscale memory-switch circuits has been attempted on various types of materials employing nonlinear resistance effects or quantum electronic transport phenomena [1]. Memory effects have been demonstrated in organic materials [2,3], showing viable bistable switching characteristics. High-speed switching has been ameliorated in solid state heterostructures, exploiting double-barrier resonant tunneling principles in hybrid composites of amorphous carbon [4].
Field emission (FE) from quantum assemblies have been theoretically predicted and experimentally shown to have useful properties due to sequential tunneling along confined structures [7-11]. Various configurations showing anomalies in current-voltage (I-V) curves, such as regions with negative differential conductance [7-12] and steps in the I-V characteristics [13, 14], have been observed. FE resonant tunneling have been investigated in metal samples containing adsorbates on surfaces [15-17].
Recently, resonant behavior has been reported from multiwall carbon nanotubes covered by chemisorbed molecules exhibiting some weak step-like properties in the field emission [18]. These weak step-like properties have been attributed to resonant tunneling through quantum states formed by the presence of the adsorbate layer. Abrupt switch-on step-like feature has also been reported for non-hydrogenated nanocrystalline diamond microtip arrays [19].